Junior Achievement is an organization that educates young people about business and economics. The organization, sometimes called JA, operates in cities, suburbs, and rural areas across the United States. Its international programs reach students in other countries throughout the world. Junior Achievement conducts activities that begin in kindergarten and continue through high school, with classroom programs, after-school programs, and Internet exercises. Junior Achievement programs are taught by classroom volunteers from the business community. Business and industrial firms sponsor the organization.
In the Junior Achievement Company Program, high school students form, manage, and operate their own companies during the school year. These companies are set up like corporations and market small products or services. The students sell shares to themselves and others. They keep records, pay themselves small wages, and run their businesses. At the end of the school year, the students dissolve their corporations and divide their capital and any profit among shareholders. Each company has at least one adult volunteer adviser.
In 1975, Junior Achievement began the National Business Hall of Fame. The hall honors people who have made outstanding contributions to business and the free enterprise system.
Junior Achievement was founded in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1919 by Theodore N. Vail, president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company; Horace A. Moses, a paper manufacturer; and Senator Winthrop Murray Crane of Massachusetts. Junior Achievement headquarters are in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
